Two congressmen who sat in Trump's VIP area agreed."Why do you think he's coming to Pennsylvania?" said Rep. Scott
Perry, a Republican from York County. "Because he knows Pennsylvania put
him over the top."

"So it is no surprise to see him come back - and I'm sure we will see
him again as his term progresses," Lord said. "The state slogan for a
while was 'You have a friend in Pennsylvania.' That applies especially
to President Trump."

It remains to be seen whether Pennsylvania has a friend in the White
House, but Lord and the Farm Show crowd would say they already know."

As long as the U.S. remains a relatively high-wage area, with a
generous, tax-funded welfare system—it will experience migratory
pressure from low-wage Mexico....Migratory pressure flows from low-wage to high-wage regions; from the Third World to the First World.

Alas, "migratory equilibrium will be reached once First World becomes
Third World." This Trump seeks to forestall with his most important
stipulation:...

"Having a secure border is a sovereign right. The
right of either country to build a physical barrier or wall" to stem
the tide of illegal migration, weapons and drugs is incontestable and
must be recognized."...

The executive order is focused on improving “accountability and
whistleblower protection” at VA by creating an office dedicated to that
purpose and the position of special assistant to the secretary who will
report directly to the secretary and serve as executive director of the
office.

The new executive director “will report directly to me as secretary
so that we can identify barriers that are preventing us from removing
employees and people that we have identified that should no longer be
working at VA,” said Shulkin. “We want make sure that we have employees
who work hard and are committed to the mission of serving our Veterans.”

The VA will establish the office and appoint the executive director within 45 days of the signing of the executive order.

The executive director will advise and assist the secretary in using
all available authorities to discipline or terminate any VA manager or
employee who has violated the public’s trust and failed to carry out his
or her duties on behalf of Veterans. The executive director will also
assist the secretary in recruiting, rewarding, and retaining
high-performing employees.

Effective today, VA is entering a partnership agreement with the
Department of Health and Human Services that will allow the assignment
of medical professionals from the U.S. Public Health Service
Commissioned Corps to provide direct patient care to Veterans in VA
hospitals and clinics in underserved communities.

“My priority has been to improve access to care for our nation’s
heroes,” said Shulkin. “By partnering with our colleagues at HHS, we
will enhance the availability of clinical care in those areas most in
need.”

The initial agreement enables up to 20 officers from the Commissioned
Corps to treat Veterans inVA facilities that are most in need of
staffing support. The agreement also allows up to 10 more officers to
help support coordination for veterans receiving non-VA community care.

The secretary announced a major new initiative to detect and prevent
fraud, waste and abuse in the Department of Veterans Affairs. Effective
today, this initiative has the potential to save tens of millions of
taxpayer dollars currently at risk, for fraud, waste and abuse that can
be redirected to better serve Veterans.

The initiative will include bringing in the leading thinkers from the
private sector and other government organizations in an advisory
committee to identify and leverage cutting-edge fraud detection tools
and; and coordinate all fraud, waste and abuse detection and reporting
activities across the department through a single office.

The department has identified potential savings in the area of
improper payments to health care providers, major contracts, contracts
for pharmaceuticals, and the delivery of benefits to Veterans.

“Restoring the trust of Veterans and improving system-wide
accountability are among my top priorities. It’s essential to ensure
that all our employees and the companies that we do business with are
being good stewards of the resources available to care for our
Veterans,” said Shulkin.

Effective today, VA is amending guidelines to allow state-owned
Veteran nursing homes to follow state guidelines in the construction
design of their facilities – removing red tape, while increasing access
to services for Veterans.

Up to now, to qualify for federal grant funding for Veteran nursing
homes in their state, Governors and state officials have had to follow
federal construction design guidelines. With today’s announcement by the
secretary, that is no longer the case and governors are freed up to
follow their own state guidelines in the construction design of these
facilities while still qualifying for the same level of federal grant
funding as before.

In announcing the move, Shulkin noted that state design guidelines
already are sufficient to the task of providing safe conditions for our
Veterans and the department recognizes the need to move quickly to
reduce unnecessary barriers to providing much needed services to our
Veterans." image above from va.gov

"After
the highest court in Massachusetts ruled against a Canadian real estate
company and after the United State Supreme Court declined to hear its
appeal, the company's day in court was over.

Or
so thoughtChief Justice Margaret H. Marshall of the Massachusetts
court, until she learned of yet another layer of judicial review, by an
international tribunal.

''I
was at a dinner party,'' Chief Justice Marshall said in a recent
telephone interview. ''To say I was surprised to hear that a judgment of
this court was being subjected to further review would be an
understatement.''

Any
Canadian or Mexican business that contends it has been treated unjustly
by the American judicial system can file a similar claim. American
businesses with similar complaints about Canadian or Mexican court
judgments can do the same. Under the Nafta agreement the government
whose court system is challenged is responsible for awards by the
tribunals.

''This
is the biggest threat to United States judicial independence that no
one has heard of and even fewer people understand,'' said John D.
Echeverria, a law professor at Georgetown University.

In
the Massachusetts case, brought by Mondev International, the Nafta
tribunal decided in 2002 that the Massachusetts courts had not violated
international law.

But
in a separate pending case, brought by a Canadian company challenging
the largest jury verdict in Mississippi history, a different Nafta
tribunal offered a harsh assessment of Mississippi justice.

''The
whole trial and its resultant verdict,'' the three-judge tribunal ruled
last summer,''were clearly improper and discreditable and cannot be
squared with minimum standards of international law and equitable
treatment.''

The
Mississippi case arose from an exchange of companies between a Canadian
concern, the Loewen Group, and companies owned by a Mississippi family,
the O'Keefes. The O'Keefe family, contending that the Loewen Group did
not live up to its obligations, sued for breach of contract and fraud.
Although the tribunal found that the businesses were worth no more than
$8 million, a jury in Jackson, Miss., awarded the family $500 million in
1995.

Loewen
settled the case the next year, for $175 million. But, arguing that the
trial had been unfair and that it had been coerced into settling by a
requirement that the company post an appeal bond of $625 million, Loewen
and one of its owners filed their claim in the Nafta tribunal in 1998.
They asked for $725 million from the United States.

The
availability of this additional layer of review, above even the United
States Supreme Court, is a significant development, legal scholars said.

The part of Nafta that created the tribunals, known as Chapter 11, received no consideration when it was passed in 1993.

''When
we debated Nafta,'' Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, the
presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, said in 2002, ''not a
single word was uttered in discussing Chapter 11. Why? Because we didn't
know how this provision would play out. No one really knew just how
high the stakes would get.''

Senator
Kerry spoke before the tribunal rulings concerning the Massachusetts
and Mississippi judgments. He offered his comments in connection with
legislation he had offered to limit the jurisdiction of the tribunals.
His amendment was rejected by the Senate.

Abner
Mikva, a former chief judge of the federal appeals court in Washington
and a former congressman, is one of the three Nafta judges considering
the Mississippi case. He declined to discuss it but did offer his
perspective on Chapter 11.

The
other judges considering the case are Anthony Mason, a former chief
justice of the Australian High Court, and Michael Mustill, a former
British law lord. They were selected by the parties, and their judgment
cannot be appealed.

Though
the tribunal called the Mississippi trial ''a disgrace'' and ''the
antithesis of due process,'' it denied the claim of the company itself
last summer. The tribunal said the Loewen Group was ineligible to bring
the claim because it had become an American company in the meantime. The
trade agreement allows claims only by foreign investors.

But
a separate claim by Raymond L. Loewen, a former owner of the company
who was and is Canadian, remains pending. He did not specify the damages
he is seeking. A decision is expected soon.

Even Mr. Loewen's American lawyer, John H. Lewis Jr., expressed some discomfort with the power of the Nafta tribunals.

''I
agree with the principle that that people should not short-circuit or
second-guess the American legal system,'' he said. ''But this case was
so extreme that hopefully it will never happen again.''

About
a score of cases have been filed against the three countries that are
parties to the trade agreement, mostly in connection with environmental
and other regulations. The United States has yet to lose one, but Canada
and Mexico have had to pay damages to American investors.

In
the Mississippi case, the tribunal had faulted Judge James E. Graves
Jr. of Circuit Court in Jackson for allowing lawyers for a Mississippi
businessman to make ''prejudicial and extravagant'' statements to the
jury about the Canadian defendants' wealth and nationality....

''Bilateral
investment treaties went both ways,'' said Todd Weiler, a Nafta expert
at the University of Windsor Law School in Canada, ''but in practice
there weren't that many Barbadians or Nicaraguans investing in the
U.S.''

''There
are grave implications here,'' Chief Justice Ronald M. George of the
California Supreme Court said in an interview. ''It's rather shocking
that the highest courts of the state and federal governments could have
their judgments circumvented by these tribunals.''"

The documents, part of an internal budget proposal for 2018, seem to
confirm the State Department and USAID’s 28 percent budget cut announced in March.

While many countries will suffer from major cutbacks or else have aid
cancelled entirely, funds to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip will see
an increase of 4.6 percent for the 2018 fiscal year, from $205 million
in 2017 to $215 million.

Increased aid will be funneled to Syria, Iraq and Libya to the tune
of hundreds of millions of dollars, while other countries in the Middle
East will be subjected to cutbacks, according to the report.

Those
countries include, somewhat surprisingly, Egypt and Jordan.

Despite ostensibly warm relations
and mutual admiration between President Donald Trump and Egyptian
President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, Egypt’s aid will nevertheless be
subjected to a 47.4 percent decrease. The proposal also includes a 21
percent cut in foreign aid to Jordan, even though King Abdullah is the
only world leader to have met with the president twice over their shared
desire to destroy the Islamic State.

In addition to the proposed aid cuts, the budget, if approved, would
see an almost $1 billion cut in aid for climate change programs.
Congress is likely to oppose the proposed cuts.

Added: Foreign Policy article linked above. It's nauseating to read. These people are worse than I imagined, a bunch of parasite cry babies. Special among parasites, they need US taxpayer dollars because they're saints and life savers, especially those involved with USAID. US taxpayer dollars to certain groups should never be examined, if anything should only increase?The only people who have a case in this matter are US
taxpayers.

But the final decision, expected next month, is anything but
certain, and staying at the table could come with significant caveats,
like a weakening of US commitments to curbing greenhouse gas emissions."...

“The is unacceptable in international law. If the USAor coalition or the US [State Dept.]
spokesperson can only say, ‘We are concerned or we are unhappy’[about Turkey’s airstrikes] then we will not accept this. If this is the
reaction, we do not accept it. It means they accept what was done to
us,” Abdullah told Sputnik Turkish on Wednesday.

The
spokeswoman for the all female YPJ, which is part of the People’s
Protection Units (YPG), a leading force in the US-backed Syrian
Democratic Forces that has encircled Raqqa, went on to say that unless
the US gave a concrete response they would withdraw from the operation.

“Until
now we have been in a joint struggle with the coalition against ISIS
[IS] terror. We are still involved in that struggle. [But] our people
are expecting a response from us on why the coalition is not
showing Turkey a concrete reaction. If the coalition does not show a
concrete reaction then we will withdraw our forces from Raqqa. They
[coalition] need to convince our people. We are not anyone’s stick to
beat their enemies with.”

Abdullah concluded by saying that Turkey
as a NATO member had carried out the airstrikes and that the lack of a
response meant that NATO approved the attack.

“If a practical and verbal reaction is not shown we will re-evaluate and decide what to do.”

The media flip back and forth on who's to blame for a
government shutdown depending on which branch is controlled by
Republicans. But the "shutdown" hypothetical in this case is a trick
question.

A failure to build the wall IS a government shutdown.

Of course it would be unfortunate if schoolchildren
couldn't visit national parks and welfare checks didn't get mailed on
time. But arranging White House tours isn't the primary function of the
government.

The government's No. 1 job is to protect the nation.

This has always been true, but it's especially
important at this moment in history, when we have drugs, gang members,
diseases and terrorists pouring across our border. The failure of the
government to close our border is the definition of a government
shutdown.

This isn't like other shutdowns. Democrats can't
wail about Republicans cutting Social Security or school lunches. They
are willing to shut the government down because they don't want borders.
Take that to the country!

As commander in chief, Trump doesn't need Congress
to build a wall. The Constitution charges him with defending the nation.
Contrary to what you may have heard from various warmongers on TV and
in Trump's Cabinet, that means defending our borders -- not Ukraine's borders.

Building a wall is not only Trump's constitutional duty, but it's also massively popular.

Although Trump doesn't need congressional approval
for a wall, it was smart for him to demand a vote. Let the Democrats run
for re-election on opposing the wall.

Let Sen. Claire McCaskill explain to the parents of
kids killed by illegals that she thought a wall was inhumane.

Let Sen. Angus King say to the people of Maine that instead of a wall
that would block heroin from pouring into our country, he thought a
better plan was to sponsor a bunch of treatment centers for after your
kid is already addicted.

Let Sen. Chuck Schumer tell us why it's OK for Israel to have a wall, but not us.

Let open borders Republicans like Sen. Marco Rubio
tell African-Americans that it's more important to help illegal aliens
than to help black American teenagers, currently suffering a crippling
unemployment rate.

Republicans are both corrupt and stupid, so it's
hard to tell which one animates their opposition to the wall. But the
Democrats are bluffing. They're trying to get the GOP to fold before
they show us their pair of threes.

No politician wants to have to explain a vote
against the wall. What the Democrats want is for Trump to be stuck
explaining why he didn't build the wall.

Then it will be a bloodbath. Not only Trump, but
also the entire GOP, is dead if he doesn't build a wall. Republicans
will be wiped out in the midterms, Democrats will have a 300-seat House
majority, and Trump will have to come up with an excuse for why he's not
running for re-election.

The New York Times and MSNBC are not going to say,
"We are so impressed with his growth in office, we're going to drop all
that nonsense about Russia and endorse the Republican ticket!"

No, at that point, Trump will be the worst of everything.

No one voted for Trump because of the "Access
Hollywood" tape. They voted for him because of his issues; most
prominently, his promise to build "a big beautiful wall." And who's
going to pay for it? MEXICO!

The annual outlay that illegal aliens cost U.S. taxpayers is an average amount per native-headed household of $1117.

The fiscal impact per household varies considerably because the
greatest share of the burdenfalls on state and local taxpayerswhose
burden depends on the size of the illegal alien population in that
locality.

Education for the children of illegal aliens constitutes the single
largest cost to taxpayers, at an annual price tag of nearly $52 billion.
Nearly all of those costs are absorbed by state and local governments.

At the federal level, about one-third of outlays are matched by tax collections from illegal aliens.

At the state and local level, an average of less than 5 percent of
the public costs associated with illegal immigration is recouped through
taxes collected from illegal aliens.

Most illegal aliens do not pay income taxes. Among those who do, much
of the revenues collected are refunded to the illegal aliens when they
file tax returns.

Many are also claiming tax credits resulting in payments from the U.S. Treasury.

A straight forward tangible solution demanded
by and promised to the America citizen. If this cannot be done we now
can be certain we are ruled by tyrannical oligarchs. No wall - no trust - no legitimate government - revolution soon - we're pissed.

The money was appropriated what like back in 2006 - 2007 ish. Build the wall nowand start ignoring activist judges, president Trump pretty much that simple - perhaps not easy.

"Unless the world ends before Saturday, most assessments of President Trump’s first 100 days
will include a mix of the good, the bad and the ugly. The emphasis will
reveal more about those doing the grading than Trump himself.

Yet the polarized reaction following a polarized election is not the
whole story. Because we are not yet at the juncture where anything
involving Trump can be taken for granted, the 100-day ritual has special
meaning. To understand my point, let’s go back to the beginning — to
the wee hours of November 9th.

The jubilation among his supporters offered a stark contrast to the
weeping and wailing of Hillary Clinton’s. She had called Trump to
concede — we learned later she did so only after President Obama insisted — but kept out of sight in the crushing end to her quest.

Or was it? Forwithin hours, her supporters took their anger to the
streets, denouncing Trump as “Not My President” in cities across
America. They continued for days, and some were punctuated by violence.

Legal efforts to overturn the election also began. One, led by Green
Party candidate Jill Stein, focused on demanding recounts in three
states Trump narrowly won —Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Stein looked to be a stalking horse, and Clinton’s team quickly joined the effort."...

(continuing): "A separate challenge to the results focused on persuading electoral
college delegates in red states to switch from Trump to Clinton or even
to abstain, in hopes of denying him the necessary majority of 270.

The desperate feeling in the air cut both ways — the odds against
overturning the results were long, but given the shock of Trump’s upset,
there was a sense that anything could happen. The pressure felt
enormous and the wheels of American democracy might come flying off.

Clearly, Clinton’s camp held out hope it could steal the election.
Her big margin in the popular vote became a rationale, even as she now
looked shameless after denouncing Trump during the campaign for his
refusal to promise that he wouldn’t contest the results.

Then the Russians came, or rather the Obama administration unleashed a
flood of leaks suggesting Trump’s team had colluded with Russia to tip
the election. In December, Obamaissued sanctions against officials and
firms and expelled 35 Russians from the US while ordering his
intelligence chiefs to produce a report within a month — while he was
still in office.

No matter, the hothouse talk of impeachment grew, and social media
carried numerous posts about assassination. Madonna talked of blowing up
the White House and others spoke ominously of “stopping” Trump.

Each outrage was quickly replaced by a new one, with shadowy stories
about Trump’s teams contact with Russia appearing on the eve of his
inauguration. With violence rising in Washington’s streets even as the
historic ceremony began, it seemed possible the handover of power might
not be peaceful....

Trump has sometimes been very good — Neil Gorsuch is on the Supreme Court
— but he has been spectacularly lucky in his enemies, with the
Democratic Party determined to destroy itself in a spiral of vicious
radicalism. A new poll says 67 percent of Americans think the Dems are
out of touch with their concerns, making Trump’s historically-low
approval rating of 42 percent look respectable.

The media, of course, is still biased and, after failing to elect
Clinton, turned on Trump with savagery and cartoonish exaggerations. One
New York Times story actually said his cabinet met in the dark because
nobody knew how to turn on the White House lights. Oh, please.

At some point, the president will not be gifted with such low
expectations and hapless opponents. We are probably close to that phase
when the world comes to accept as fact Trump’s presidency.

That doesn’t mean everything will be normal, but it does mean he will
be judged by customary standards: Whether he is earning the trust of
more Americans and getting big things done with Congress.